I have worked in such an environment. It was likely running on an overprovisioned server, that had to be accessed via an Internet Explorer ActiveX plugin. I'd rather be using a green-phosphor VT100 at that stage.

> Internet Explorer ActiveX plugin

Virtualized desktops have been solved. All the major players offer them. FFS, you can run Xbox One games in the cloud and play in your browser now.

That sound's like it is a looong time ago, todays VD's are extremely responsive just have a look at Shadow for example.

~6 years ago. I'd be surprised if such things weren't still deployed in places.

Thats a solution thats used to be common for well run large shops(well sometimes using things like remotely accessed hardware prior to modern virtualization) but as this creates work and expenditure for the client many smaller outfit's kind of want it both ways and expect the contractor to fund hardware/software completely identical to what their IT is deploying for employee's.

If you can pay 7500$/y for spyware you can surely pay for a VDI-Product.

The problem is rarely the monetary costs alone it's more about the need for handling an one-off situation that require special policies, and becomes an special item on the budget.

For large companies supplying VDI to consultants tend to be an standardized package that gets billed back to whatever project is hiring the consultants but for mid-sized organisation VDI is a big scary word that's going to require special handling.

Most desktop support teams are completely dependent on standardization to the point where they tend to turn into complete control freaks, that panic at the thought of anything that is not "by the book", so they often just apply the book without additional budgets to external consultants.

I am not interested in politics or humans when the problem is a technical one, i understand you but that's my stand ;)

why not spin up a VM dedicated to that client and confine all crapware to that VM?

Absolutely!